Battier ready to assert himself as season nears

You can call him Sir Shane-the would-be ruler of a should-be empire.

With just one year in the books, Duke fans have already anointed Shane Battier to lead the Blue Devils into the next century, measuring his career more by what he is going to do than what he has done.

For the sophomore forward, they are expectations to which he's becoming accustomed. But those expectations may be rapidly transforming themselves into a heavy crown of hypotheticals.

"I take it all in stride, all the expectations and everything," Battier said. "I know I'm young, I know I don't put up most impressive numbers now, so it's easy for me to keep it in perspective. But it's good to know the stuff I do is noticed.

"There's never going to be a point where I'll have to be the No. 1 guy by myself, there's always going to be talent, so the onus of Duke basketball won't fall on one person. But I don't play to be the No. 1 guy, I just play to win games and have fun and everything else is gravy."

Delivered with his trademark bear-hug of a smile and his thoughtful manner, it's easy to be fooled by his show of modesty. But there won't be many takers on the "just another cog in the wheel" line Battier tries to sell.

Although leading the Blue Devils still may be in the future for Battier, leading the team in defense is already a reality. Last year, Battier paced the team in both blocks and charges-picking up 24 more charges than the second-highest total on the team.

"I see my role as a defensive stopper," the Basketball Times Freshman All-American said. "And then beyond that I look at myself as a complementary player... shooting the open jumpshot, passing or whatever to make others better."

"I'm happy just to be able to play with guys like that," Battier said. "I'm happy for my teammates, happy for them to be where they're at. I've got no problem sitting in the back, doing the little things it takes to win ballgames. I'm a firm believer if you do that and win ballgames, the limelight will spill onto everyone and that's when I'll get my recognition."

But even his coach is begging for Battier to be more active in grabbing the limelight.

"Shane should be our most versatile player," coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "He is a guy that can guard a center or a point guard and anything in between. I liken what he does defensively to what Grant Hill did here. His ability to play defense is superb.

"He has an uncanny ability to play defense and a love for it. As a result that increases his versatility. I think you'll see him shoot more. I think he deferred on the offensive end. He has worked a lot on that."

With the return of a fully recovered Brand added to the offseason improvements of Chris Burgess, Krzyzewski plans to utilize Battier less on the blocks, a move which should stimulate his offensive productivity.

"Last year I ended up playing center, and you look at the team this year with everyone improving and I don't even want to go in the paint anymore," Battier joked. "If I have the ball on the wing, I'm going to try a little dribble and pull-up shot. I'm not going up against those big boys."

The Shane Battier basketball saga started well before his name ever found its way into a recruiting publication and when the 'big boys' referred to the fifth graders at the local elementary school. In fact, Battier's relationship with basketball goes even beyond his recollection.

"I don't remember exactly when I first started playing," he said. "I had a hoop in my house and I grew up in a very sports-oriented family. If it wasn't basketball in the yard or football, it was playing baseball. My earliest memory of basketball was playing P-I-G with my father in the driveway. I had to play with one of those small basketballs you can palm easily, because I still wasn't big enough to use a real-sized ball."

Although it was a long road from the hoop in the backyard of his Birmingham, Mich., home to a Division I scholarship, there was never any doubt Battier was destined to make it. As early as seventh grade, Battier was already tabbed by the recruiting gurus as a future star, ranked the No. 2 seventh grader in the nation.

But unlike most top players in the nation, and despite growing up in Michigan's Fab-Five era, Battier centered his game around defense.

"My love of defense all goes back to my early days of playing basketball," he said. "I was basically a shot blocker, because I was tall and my coach put me under the basket and told me to block shots. And I began to love the dejected faces of opponents that I reject. Now, I just love to stop my man."

With the growing recognition he was receiving came the recruiting battles. Battier, however, found himself protected from the recruiting nightmare that so many top targets endure.

"I was very fortunate to have a coach who had been through the recruiting process," he said. "He kept it low key and under control, and along with my parents we formulated a list of five schools early, [and we] told everyone else thanks but no thanks."

It didn't take Battier long to realize where his years of playing P-I-G in the backyard and pickup games in the streets of Birmingham were going to take him.

"Duke was my second official visit, and I just fell in love with everything about Duke-the people, the trees, just everything," he said. "It was just an intangible sense of belonging here."

Yet despite all the hype and all the fanfare around his career, Battier has managed to avoid the pitfalls of an often egocentric game. Crediting his parents for instilling the Golden Rule as his moral guidance, Battier strives to be known as much for his actions off the court as those on it.

"You just have to keep in your mind that basketball is just a game, that it isn't larger than life, though sometimes it seems that way," Battier said. "I was fortunate to have the best parents in the world and they helped me see that. Though basketball is the big love of my life, it does not define me as an individual."

As he stands on the verge of his sophomore campaign, Battier's main worries for his life aren't so much whether he'll live up to the expectations of others, or whether his name will be remembered in Duke basketball lore, but whether his efforts, not his achievements, were enough.

"The one thing I'd liked to be remembered for is that I was good in everything," Battier said. "Not too many people can say they excel in everything they try. I want to be known as someone who was never afraid to fail but someone who still always managed to find a way to succeed."